Letter from the Guest Editor

By Dr. Melina Vizcaíno-Alemán

Issue 41 • Spring 2020

Dear Readers,

This issue of Blue Mesa Review opens with a selection of work by 2019-2020 U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo. Mr. Anaya founded BMR in 1989, and in 2010 he donated seed money to UNM’s English Department to establish the annual Rudolfo and Patricia Anaya Lecture on the Literature of the Southwest. The first issue of BMR debuted 30 years ago and featured the Southwest, and this year we will host our tenth annual lecture featuring Joy Harjo as our distinguished speaker.

In collaboration with the editorial board, I present Harjo’s poetry as a reminder of Mr. Anaya’s legacy and the enduring work of our region’s literary luminaries. Joy Harjo will deliver the tenth annual Anaya lecture on October 1, 2020, an award-winning writer, performer, and saxophone player of the Mvskoke/ Creek Nation. Harjo is an alumnae of UNM’s English Department and once served as the Joseph Russo Endowed Professor. As the first Native American to be named the nation’s Poet Laureate, Harjo will bring critical regional attention to the landscape, soundscape, and myth-scape of the Indigenous Southwest, a concept that crosses borders and conventions of sound, scape, and sky. Harjo describes her work best in How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems (W.W. Norton 2002): “There is no separation between poetry, the stories and events that link them, or the music that holds all together, just as there is no separation between human, animal, plant, sky, and earth” (xxvi).

With a local connection to New Mexico and a national reputation as a world-renowned poet, the inclusion of Harjo’s poetry is meant to inspire present and future generations of students with a passion and desire to write. The five poems included in this issue appeared in the 1990 collection, In Mad Love and War, and we would like to thank Suzanna Tamminen with Wesleyan Press for granting us permission to republish. I would also like to thank the BMR editorial board, especially Tori Cárdenas and Mario Montoya, for their collaboration and enthusiasm. I leave you with Harjo’s own words, to inspire the creative endeavor of this and all artistic works, “A story leads to a dream leads to a poem leads to a song and so on” (xxvii).

Dr. Melina Vizcaíno-Alemán

Dr. Melina Vizcaíno-Alemán is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of New Mexico.

Julianna Bolanos, Tessa Anderson, and Franklin De La Cruz

Julianna Bolanos is a student at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, on her way to obtaining a bachelor’s degree in Studio Art with a focus in glass blowing and sculpture. Originally from Austin, Texas, she hopes to travel to and experience art in every form from all cultures, building connections and creating collaborative masterpieces until the very moment she dies.

Tessa Anderson is a student from the University of Minnesota studying human physiology, neuroscience, and public health on an exchange program at the University of Hawaii. While in Hawai’i, she’s tapped into her creative flow, drawing inspiration from the healing powers, beauty, and sacredness of Mother Earth on the island of Oahu. She hopes to use her mind, body, and soul together to create a space of healing one day.

Franklin De La Cruz is a 21 year old student of the Dominican diaspora living in the US mainland (Occupied Calusa and Seminole land). While studying away at UH last fall he found inspiration in the beauty that surrounded him. More than ever while in Hawai’i, he realized the opportunity for light in a world smothered by darkness, and vowed to relay that in everything he creates, in hopes of creating a radically distant future.